Alex de Minaur through to Vienna Open quarter-finals

Australia’s Alex de Minaur has bagged much-needed back-to-back wins at the 2024 Vienna Open, with the world No.10 defeating Italy’s Flavio Cobolli 7-6 (2), 3-1 (ret.) on Friday morning (AEDT).

De Minaur has been managing a hip injury since withdrawing from Wimbledon ahead of his quarter-final against Novak Djokovic.

He has only played in two tournaments since then, and while he also made the last eight of the US Open, the 25-year-old has struggled to return to his physical peak.

Having defeated Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff 2-6, 6-2, 6-2 earlier in Vienna, de Minaur’s win over Cobolli is the first time he has strung together victories since the first week of September.

It was his opponent who had the physical issues this time, with Cobolli nursing a shoulder injury across an opening set that ended in a tiebreaker.

After pushing on for four more games in the second set, the Italian was forced to retire from the match and hand de Minaur a spot in the quarter-finals against young Czech Jakub Mensik.

The victory keeps alive de Minaur’s hopes of making a maiden ATP Finals appearance, as he sits one spot outside the top eight in the Race to Turin.

While he is 265 points short of qualifying at the moment, a title run in Vienna would put him ahead of Casper Ruud and potentially Andrey Rublev — who is still alive at the Swiss Indoors Basel — to move within the qualifying cutoff in the live rankings.

Grigor Dimitrov’s defeat on Thursday also helps de Minaur’s cause, with the Bulgarian one of the players nipping at his heels in the Race to Turin.

Dimitrov fell to the big-hitting Tomac Machac, 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-3, and remains 305 points adrift of de Minaur in 10th place.

Tennis betting sites have de Minaur as a -138.89 favourite to continue his run and overcome Mensik in the quarter-finals.

BetOnline has the Aussie at +650 to win the title, behind Alexander Zverev at +137 and Jack Draper and Metteo Berrettini at +550 apiece.

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